"I have accomplished all I promised."Thomas Edison, to New York Sun reporter,
1882

This statement indicated Edison's pleasure upon opening the Pearl Street station.
But even he would have had difficulty predicting the consequences of his invention. It
stimulated a lighting industry that quickly spread through cities and towns across the
country. And it helped establish the need for large central stations, beginning with
Niagara Falls. Ironically, since these stations would rely on alternating current for
efficient long-distance transmission, they would lead to the abandonment of Edison's
direct current systems in most applications.

Over the course of the next half century two broad social effects developed that
seem especially significant. 1) We now had complete control over light in homes and
offices, independent of the time of day. 2) The electric light brought networks of wires
into homes and offices, making it relatively easy to add appliances and other machines.

Photo by Falk shows Edison at 57 in 1904.

[xL109 - information and credit label - engines platform]

By the end of the 1880s three firms dominated the lighting field: Edison,
Westinghouse, and Thomson Houston. Edison stayed with direct current, the others
used alternating current. In 1892, the Edison company and Thomson Houston merged to
form General Electric.

Right side of platform:

Edison Z-type generator, rated at 60 lamps (52 amps at 110 volts), about 1888,
[320,572] from University of Minnesota

"Someday I'll harness that power."Nikola Tesla, as a young boy looking at a picture of
Niagara Falls, according to a recollection in 1915

The world's first large-scale central generating station opened at Niagara Falls in
1895, with some of its output transmitted twenty miles away to Buffalo. It employed
two-phase AC techniques invented by Nikola Tesla and was thus more efficient than
previous alternating current systems.

In succeeding years, large centralized AC generating stations would eventually link
together the many local systems (DC and AC) in cities and towns across the country into
a national grid.

The electric lamp gave us complete control over lighting of homes and work places.
By the time of the Roosevelt quote this was true (with the help of the REA) even in rural
areas. The consequence was to interrupt the normal rhythms of life and to alter for all
time the schedules we have for work and leisure.

A Danish immigrant, Frode Rambusch, started a business in New York in the 1890s
designing murals and stained glass windows for public buildings. He soon expanded
activities to make special lighting fixtures, incorporating artificial light into the
architecture. At right (9) is his first fixture. It was designed in 1908 to shield the eyes
while illuminating a mural he had created. The overhead lamp (1939) is also by
Rambusch.

"Electricity is a modern necessity of life."(Franklin Roosevelt, at Rural Electrification
Administration celebration, 1938)

The electric lamp, in effect, paid for a network of generators and wires. These were
available for a whole new class of inventions--appliances and equipment that by the
1930s had transformed the home and the workplace.

"It is curious to watch two men entering what is little more than a crack in the
earth, and taking with them a powerful machine which is receiving power from the
surface by means of an electric cable."Charles R. Gibson, reporting on the use of electricity
for mining in 1906.

Gibson wrote a book-length survey of the state of the electric arts entitled, The
Romance of Modern Electricity. The title reflected his sense of wonder at the
marvellous [sic] difference that the advent of electricity has made in everyday life. That
difference became practical through the development of an interconnected system of
large, central generating stations, high-voltage AC transmission lines, and lower voltage
AC and DC distribution lines. An integrated system that could make electricity and
deliver it hundreds of miles to wherever it was wanted -- be that in tall buildings or deep
mines as seen in the image to your right.

Coal Cutter

The machine below literally undermined a coal-seam by cutting a slot about 4 feet
deep along the base of the seam. Gravity or, if necessary, explosives would then bring
the seam down. Automating this part of the job doubled each miner s daily output,
according to Gibson.

Electric coal-cutter, [MN7891-A], from Jeffery Manufacturing Co.

[label xL57.2]

Switch Panels

Opened in 1889 as a central generating station, the 26th Street
Station in New York City provided direct current power to the surrounding area. When
the Waterside generating station began providing alternating current service to all of
Manhattan about 10 years later, rotary converters and the necessary control equipment
were installed at 26th Street. Used as a substation, its operators
converted 3-phase, 6600-volt, 25-cycle AC from Waterside to 120 / 240 DC needed by
customers. The panels to the left were removed from 26th Street after it
ceased operation in 1977.

Left to right:
AC control board, Group switch and circuit breakers, and DC feeder selector switch
assembly, [1980.0405.02, .03, .04] from Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc.

[label xL57.1]

Elevator

The elevator to your left was installed in the Carnegie mansion at 2 East
91st New York, in 1902. While this installation could be considered a
luxury (it stopped at five floors and the basement), elevators were essential to the new
skyscrapers.

Aside from lighting, the most important early use of electric power was for street
railways. The first practical system was installed by Frank Sprague in Richmond in
1888, and others quickly followed. Within 15 years over 20,000 miles of street railway
lines had been built in American cities, almost completely replacing horse-drawn cars.

Shown here is a Westinghouse streetcar controller of about 1910 [321,385], from
Robert M. Vogel.

Short was born in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from Ohio State University, he
became professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Denver. He held over
500 patents, many in the field of streetcar railways.

[Label sL17 - Van Depoele]

Charles J. Van Depoele (1846 -1892)

A native of Belgium, Van Depoele came to the United States in 1869 and settled in
Detroit. He invented an arc lamp in 1870, but is especially known for developing a form
of electric railway using overhead wires.

[Label sL18 - Sprague]

Frank J. Sprague (1857 -1934)

A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy, Sprague covered the Paris (1881) and
London (1882) electrical exhibitions for the Navy. He worked briefly for Edison and later
developed a constant-speed motor and an overhead trolley pick-up device important for
street railways.

[Label sL19 - Daft]

Leo Daft (1843 -1922)

Born in Great Britain, Daft came to the United States in 1866. In 1879 he joined the
New York Electric Light Company and transformed it into the Daft Electric Company,
which became a major competitor in the street railway business.